Broken Wings
by TribalGirl
Summary: The story of Nef the Bat Mage - her life, her choices, her mistakes.  T for blood and paranoia.  READ IT!
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater. Or Wolf Brother or Spirit Walker or Outcast or Oath breaker or Ghost Hunter which is the only one I haven't read yet. Michelle Paver does. I wish I did.**

**Prologue**

She lunged at the girl with the hair of the World Spirit and snatched the mace from her hand. Black ice crunched beneath her boots as she shoved the Raven girl into the ground and stood on the edge of the chasm. She knew what she must do. Perheps she had always known.

As she stood there, crippled legs tensed to leap, time stretched, and a single heartbeat became infinitely long. She felt her souls tugging away, and knew that her time was near.

Her eyes fastened on the beauty of the fire-opal in its black mace. So bright... so infinitely bright...

Then she looked again, at the boy lying in the snow. His body was bent at an awkward angle, and she knew the pain he felt as his souls scattered to the winds, harnessing that great power. His true clan-tattoos - the dotted Wolf Clan - were beginning to reappear, but his wolf gray eyes were closed. Those eyes... so like his father's...

The spirit walker. This was for him. No, for his father, the dead Mage, the Wolf Mage. The traitor... but traitor or no, this was for his sake. Oh, what cruel irony. She was indebted to him for saving her life. Now the debt was repaid through her death.


	2. Wooden Reflections

**Chapter 1**  
**Wooden Reflections**

The baby was born in the middle of the night, already different.

Her mother raised her head weakly. "Let me see the child."

The Mage wrapped the newborn infant in a reindeer-hide blanket and handed her to the mother.

She looked at her baby, at the deathly pale skin, the brown-black hair, the small sharp ears, the long, thin fingers, and something in her heart beat faster. The infant's eyes were still closed, but that something in the depths of her souls knew what she would see when they opened.

A bat fluttered from the ceiling of the cave and landed on the girl's forehead. It sat there, clinging to her hair, wings spread protectively. That, at least, was a good omen.

Then as the bat's breath fluttered her damp hair, the child blinked open wide eyes, and her mother's dread returned. The irises were deepest black, darker then the most distant reaches of the Forest, darker than the Sea Mother's deepest depths, blacker than the blackest night. Her breath left her lungs in a long exhale, a silent protest. A single word formed on the thread of air: _Mage..._

"Mage." The word was repeated, coming from the woman standing above her, still holding the herbs needed for the birth. She set them down with precise, careful movements. "Mage," she said again, and the word sounded like a curse.

"But how, Staketis," murmured the child's mother, mustering the strength to look up, "how can you tell?"

Staketis the Bat Mage did not immediately reply. In the darkness, the polished wood sewn over her blind eyes gleamed in the light of the moon. "I can feel it," she rasped. "That girl bears a power above any other than I have seen before. Her souls are so, so bright..." And for a moment, her wooden eyes glistened with the reflected light of those young souls.

"Will she be your apprentice?" asked the new mother.

Staketis did not reply. Instead she picked up a long needle and a vial of black earthblood. She turned the child's face towards hers and began pricking her chin with the needle and rubbing in the earthblood, forming the spiky tattoo of the Bat Clan. Blood oozed from the puncture marks, yet the young Mage did not cry. Her gaze remained solemn and unwavering, never faltering from the wooden glare.

When the tattoo was complete, Staketis sat back and lifted her head towards the cave entrance. She remained thus as the moon began to sink and a pale light appeared to the east.

Finally the Bat Mage turned to the mother and child. Both watched her with intent eyes, and when she spoke, it was to both of them. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I will train the new Bat Mage."

The mother gave a sigh of relief and slumped back. Yet the newborn, wrapped in her blanket, gazed back at the wooden eyes, her face almost... sad. As the two Mages sat in the bat-filled cave as morning dawned and the birds began singing, held ogether by and invisible force, Staketis prayed she had made the right choice.

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**So, what do you think? It's kind of flowery but I like it. Please review! It's fun when people do! And help me think of a name for Nef in the beginning - because all the Soul Eaters changed their identity once they turned evil.**

**-TribalGirl**


	3. Forbidden Stains

**Chapter 2  
****Forbidden Stains**

It was the middle of the night and the young man was sitting on the bank of a stream, washing blood out of his jerkin.

Normally he should not have worried about the brown marks. His clothes were stained all the time when he hunted; it was part of life. But this blood was different. It was illicit. Prohibited. It was human blood.

The children from whom it had come watched him with wide, terrified eyes.

The young man looked up, met the frightened brown gazes, and gave a lopsided grin. The girl gave a whimper and began struggling violently, while the boy blinked and closed his eyes. Two tears leaked out from the corners of his lids.

They could do nothing. They were bound. Their attacker gave a contemptuous sneer, rubbed his closely cropped beard, and returned to his washing, rubbing the flat of his knife against the reindeer skin to speed the process. The blood was fast disappearing. S oon it would be gone and no one would have any proof that he had been away for anything more than a quick drink.

First, though, he had to hide the workings of his plan.

The children would be easy. The cave where he would begin the final work could serve in the creation as well. There was no light, no warmth. No way out without an intimate knowledge of the many winding tunnels the led to the cavern. It was perfect.

The other item, though... that would be harder. Not just an item, though, he reminded himself. It was pure beauty, raw power, vast oceans of energy compressed into a space the size of his fist. Such a concentration made it very potent indeed.

He could feel its warmth through the leather as he touched the pouch hanging at his waist. In his mind's eye he could see again its blazing fires, sparkling flames. It was his. All his. His power; his tool. With such a weapon he could do anything.

His jerkin was dry. He slipped it back over his head and stood up, grabbing the sinew bindings of the children in his control. He heard their faint whimpers as they were dragged over the ground, but he ignored them and moved them to the mouth of the cave yawning behind him. A maze of tunnels twisted in front of him, but he made his way through them with a sure foot, relying on touch to guide him through these passages he had trodden many times before.

Outside, the moon he had left behind shone coldly down, indifferent.

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**So, do you like it? It's not as good as the first one, but I was tired. Take a guess at what he's going to do with those children. It should be pretty obvious. Tell me what you think in the reviews! (And please review or else I'll think no one's read this.) I need help or else I'll get a big writer's block! Any ideas?**

**- TribalGirl**


	4. Tide of Darkness

**HUGE APOLOGIES TO ALL OF YOU! I HAVE HAD A HUGE CASE OF WRITER'S BLOCK! I'll try to make the updates a bit more frequent from now on, but I'm very vulnerable to writer's block. So, no guarantees. Again, I'm SO sorry.**

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**Chapter 3  
****Tide of Darkness**

Netala glared at the side of the shelter.

Staketis had gone out for the moment, and Netala knew exactly where she had gone; out to tell Netala's mother about her daughter's singular lack of interest in Magecraft. She ground her teeth. She didn't want to be stuck in cramped shelter all day, trying to memorize the names of different herbs and fussing over sick people. She'd much rather be out hunting, doing something supportive for her clan, being part of that great web of life... What she did not want was to worry about plants and souls and sickness all the time.

Staketis reentered the shelter, but Netala did not look around. She heard a rustle of deer hide as Staketis sat down next to her. _Here it comes_, she thought bitterly.

"You really need to start showing more interest in Magecraft," began Staketis. Netala did not respond. She had heard this many times before. "It's more important for your clan than you might think."

Still Netala said nothing.

"You know you're naturally predisposed to be a Mage," Staketis went on. "Your eyes are that deep black, and your souls - "

Netala's simmering feeling of bitterness flared into rage. "Stop talking to me about souls!" she spat, feeling the words like poison on her lips. "And about herbs, and destiny! It's not real! None of it's real! Not in the way that trees and rocks are real. It's just one big lie!" She leapt to her feet, still small enough to stand under the low roof of the shelter, and fled through the door.

She did not stop as she sprinted through the camp, but kept running until she reached a quiet stream where no one seemed to be around. Then she threw herself down onto the ground and sobbed with all the passion of her seven winters. It wasn't fair! Why should she be forced against her will to do something she didn't want to do? To be something she wasn't? Because it was true. She wasn't a Mage and never would be.

Her tears stopped abruptly. Something was happening.

Netala had no idea what it was, or where, but something was going on, an event of great power and beauty. She could feel it like a prickling in her fingertips, on the back of her neck. Somewhere nearby, there was something extraordinary.

She turned in a full circle, trying to guess where this feeling was coming from, and her eyes lit on a great yawning mouth in the cliff face behind her. A cave. The feeling tugged at her, calling her in.

Netala ran into the cave, then stopped. She could see several tunnels branching off the main cavern; how was she to know which one to take? Any one of those dark holes could be the source of the feeling tugging at her fingertips.

A bat swooped down from the roof and fluttered into one of the passages.

Netala grinned. The guardian was showing her the way. "Thank you," she said out loud, and followed at a quick run.

She did not know how long she she made her way through the labyrinth of passages; how long it was until her run subsided into a trot, then a walk; how long she followed the fluttering and squeaking of her clan-creature ahead of her. All she knew was that infinitely later, she emerged into an enormous cavern with a light blazing from its center, and instinct told her to shrink back and hide. Here was the power calling to her, and she knew she must not disturb it.

Cautiously she peered out from behind a spur of rock, and saw a sight that terrified her and thrilled her blood at the same time.

In the center of the cavern, a man stood with hands upraised, chanting something she could not understand; the bleak rock walls threw back the sound and echoed it back and forth until it was no more than a meaningless jumble of overlapping noises. His back was turned, so she could not see his face, and there were two children lying beside him.

They looked to be perhaps eleven or twelve winters old, several winters older than Netala, and they were covered in filth: mud, dust, even blood, all coated their bodies like a second layer of clothing. Their clothes were little more than rags, and their hair stretched to their knees, obscuring their faces; both were lying utterly still.

Netala wondered where the blazing light was coming from, then she realized that the source was being held between the man's upraised hands, like an offering. It was a single point of bright light, a single moment of pure and terrible beauty. The mere sight of it filled her with a great longing, and she took an unwilling step out form behind her hiding place.

The chanting grew faster. It stirred Netala's blood, quickening her heart and sending blood rushing through her ears. The children who were not normal children began to stir, moaning. Netala found herself taking another step towards the cavern.

Then, through the feral glow, Netala spotted something... No, it was gone. But for a moment, she thought she had seen a pair of red eyes glowing in the darkness. She shrank back behind the rock, pulling pack against the tug of the light.

The red eyes reappeared. This time there was no mistaking it. They hovered just outside the glow of the strange object, seemingly watching it. Another pair appeared, then another; soon there was a crowd of invisible watchers congregating around the center of the cavern. The man's chanting had reached a manic tempo now, a note of something almost like madness contained in his voice.

Netala was still watching the eyes. She could feel the beings behind them, could feel their presence, and yet there was something odd... They didn't have the same _feeling_ as the humans and animals - even the trees - that she had encountered in the forest. And suddenly she realized that they were missing that feeling of three, of wholeness and completion. There was only one, one soul behind each set of eyes.

Souls.

Was she destined to be a Mage after all?

Then she saw something that grabbed her attention: two sets of eyes were being pulled into the glow of light, so fast that Netala could not make out their owners; there was only a vague dark form behind each pair of red glowing points. The two figures spread into shapeless smoke that covered each of the children like a blanket, then seemed to be sucked into their bodies; it entered in a thin swirl through their chests, foreheads and feet.

The chanting stopped.

The silence was so unexpected that Netala actually jumped; the last few echoes faded away and all was still. She could hear the man's panting, rough and coarse and labored. The two children began to twitch and spasm; their limbs jerked oddly and their heads lolled. Then one of them - a girl, Netala thought - jolted into a sitting position, then clambered unsteadily to her feet. Netala knew she was being controlled; the incompleteness she had felt behind those eyes had transferred itself to the children. The boy stood as well. They were both gazing hungrily at that point of light still held in the man's hand. Then, without warning, they leaped.

Filthy hands stretched toward the glowing object as the two children who were not children pounced on the source of the light. The man was taken completely by surprise, and as he stumbled backward, whatever it was fell from his hand and landed upon the stone ground.

Immediately there was a sound like a great shriek - but it was a sound of joy, an outburst of elation. Black shapes burst into the glow, swooping after its source as it rolled away and came to rest near Netala's foot.

It was a stone of some sort, glowing with the brightest of fires.

Netala knew not where her next action came from, but she would remember it for the rest of her life. She reached down, scooped up the stone, and ran.

A flitting black shape shot past her, and she cried out. But it was only a bat. The guardian was guiding her. Netala followed the fluttering shadow, running at full tilt through the maze of tunnels. She sprinted as fast as she could, and for good reason: a crowd of darkness followed after her. She could feel their weight, their movement, the fixed stares of the glowing red eyes behind her, and it was this terrible awareness that gave her the will to scramble to her feet all the times she stumbled, the strength to force herself up the occasional steep incline, and the stamina to keep on running despite the burning in her lungs that was like a knife between her ribs.

After countless seasons, she saw a light ahead that grew steadily nearer. Putting on a final burst of speed, she leaped forward and propelled herself out of the cave. Colors and impressions blurred together like mud, then there was a thud and she felt wetness on her elbow, her knee; she had landed in the creek. Netala lay there, unmoving, crying tears of exhaustion the she had not noticed, her chest heaving with gasps and sobs. The shadows could come and get her now. She would be powerless to do anything.

It was an eternity before she realized that there was no blackness washing over her, no red eyes looking on with triumph. Shaking, she propped herself up on one elbow and stared back at the cave.

She could not make out the walls; they were obscured by a thick wall of blackness, broken only by points of red that glared at her in hate and bitter defeat. They could not pass through, and Netala saw why: a bundle of herbs on either side of the cave entrance, tied to a rock, with the sign of the hand painted in earthblood upon the stone. She felt a burst of relief. She could just walk away now. Safe. Unharmed.

Then she noticed something: within the surging tide of shadow, something glowed. The stone.

_Forget the stone. If you go back, you will almost certainly die._

But she had to.

Netala stepped hesitantly forward, then dove through the charmed barrier.

Instantly she was assaulted a wave of shadows that attacked not only her body, but her souls as well. She cried out as her strength drained out of her limbs and her will drained out of her mind, but managed still to reach out a single hand -

Snatched -

And her fingers pushed the stone farther away. She rushed after it, but everytime she reached for it, it rolled off. The shadows were doing this. They were forcing her into a game of cat and mouse. She knew that with each desperate grab, she was being led farther into the cave, but the stone held her enthralled. It was all that mattered.

She was so absorbed that she barely noticed when the tide of darkness around her became more purposeful, redirected. Instead of attacking her, the mass was flowing away, back and forth, like the waves Netala had seen when the Bat Clan had visited the sea. Their lapse in attention enabled her to snatch up the stone. She straightened triumphantly, before realizing why the shadows had been moving that way: the rock in this part of the cave was laced with cracks, and the darkness was widening the cracks, pushing them slowly apart -

There was nothing she could do.

Nowhere she could run.

All she could do was stand, eyes wide open, stone still clutched in her hand, as the full weight of the earth came crashing down.

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**Cliffie. I'm so bad. Mwahahaha. Okay, never mind. I don't mean it. I'm just tired. Mentally, that is. This thing has been sitting in my Document Manager for several months, and I'm really sick of it. (Yes, I edit my stories directly on the site.) I don't mean I'm sick of the story - just this particular chapter. It's my least favorite so far because it's kind of boring and repetitive.**

**Netala is Nef, by the way. Sorry I couldn't come up with a more creative name, but the name Nef is just stuck to the character, and anything too different wouldn't feel like her.**

**That button is just begging to be pressed...**


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